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Peer pressure and gender

Materials

The materials required for this science fair project:

- 25 male students age 15
- 25 female students age
- A white board
- A classroom
- A black marker pen

Procedure

1. For this science fair project, the independent variable is the gender of the participant. The dependent variable is whether or not the participant succumbs to peer pressure. This is determined by asking them to answers questions to which the other participants have given a wrong answer. The constants (control variables) are the type of questions asked and the number of participants in the group.

2. 5 male and 5 female students are selected as non-participants who will who will not be subjects of our experiment. These non-participants are instructed to intentionally provide the wrong answers and they are also required to first collude, to ensure that their answers are consistent with each others.

3. The actual participants are not informed that these 10 individuals are non-participants.
4. 2 questions are written on the white board. In the 1st question will have 5 circles of different sizes drawn on the white board. Two of the circles are of the same size whereas the other 3 circles are of different sizes. In the 2nd question, 5 squares are drawn on the white board. 2 squares are of the same size and 3 squares are of different sizes.

5. The 10 non-participants and 1 participant are brought into the classroom. They are asked one by one to identify the 2 circles of the same size. The 10 non-participants will intentionally provide similar wrong answers. The participants will be the last to be asked to give their answers.

6. They are next asked to identify the 2 squares of the same size in the 2nd question. This time the actual participant will be required to answer first.

7. Procedures 4 and 5 are repeated on the remaining 39 participants. The number of correct answers given by the male and female participants for both questions are totaled and the results recorded in the table below.